What is Good Health???

There are many ideas, and opinions, on what constitutes good health, or what a meaningfully healthy lifestyle feels like or looks like. It could be said that health should be a natural condition, or at least a consistent state of well being. But what is this natural condition? There are some people who accept pain and discomfort in the body as a necessary part of living. This pain is considered to be a motivator, something for the body to fight against. They accept this condition because they observe that there are so many people with health complaints and so few people free of problems. It is even taken for granted today that dying of a degenerative disease is acceptable if the person had led a 'good life'.

Is good health some sort of perfection? In homeopathy good health is said to manifest when a person's "vital force" is being expressed by perfect functioning of all parts of the body and by a sense of general well being. This holistic approach to health states that nature, of which we are an important part, has a constant tendency toward what is best for it. This vital force of nature reaches its masterpiece in the human body and the human consciousness.

If we wanted this 'ultimate achievement' of good health our goal would be to reach old age and maturity without aches and pains, to be well-balanced and spared emotional traumas and stress-related illnesses.

It seems apparent to me that for millions of years people lived in some sort of harmony with the natural forces of nature. Good health was some sort of consistent state of being. Otherwise, how would we be here? If we were always in poor health for millions of years I cannot see how we would have survived. A long time ago the dinosaurs disappeared suddenly. Today species of plants and animals are becoming extinct at an accelerating rate. Throughout history at least some of us must have maintained an instinctive natural knowledge about how to live healthily enough to allow our species to continue. How we are doing today is a mute question. Are we going to continue to survive or is our current acceptance of sub-marginal health a sign of something?

Perhaps it is time to take a look at what this instinctive natural knowledge of good health might look like in our modern culture. I feel that it is not that much different than it has been for millions of years. This 'knowledge' probably includes simple things like sunshine, pure water, sleeping when the sun sets, relying on wholesome foods from nature, having daily alone time in the outdoors and living physically active lives in communities of loving supportive people.